1,207 research outputs found
Indeterminacy of Spatiotemporal Cardiac Alternans
Cardiac alternans, a beat-to-beat alternation in action potential duration
(at the cellular level) or in ECG morphology (at the whole heart level), is a
marker of ventricular fibrillation, a fatal heart rhythm that kills hundreds of
thousands of people in the US each year. Investigating cardiac alternans may
lead to a better understanding of the mechanisms of cardiac arrhythmias and
eventually better algorithms for the prediction and prevention of such dreadful
diseases. In paced cardiac tissue, alternans develops under increasingly
shorter pacing period. Existing experimental and theoretical studies adopt the
assumption that alternans in homogeneous cardiac tissue is exclusively
determined by the pacing period. In contrast, we find that, when calcium-driven
alternans develops in cardiac fibers, it may take different spatiotemporal
patterns depending on the pacing history. Because there coexist multiple
alternans solutions for a given pacing period, the alternans pattern on a fiber
becomes unpredictable. Using numerical simulation and theoretical analysis, we
show that the coexistence of multiple alternans patterns is induced by the
interaction between electrotonic coupling and an instability in calcium
cycling.Comment: 20 pages, 10 figures, to be published in Phys. Rev.
Unusual Dissolution Behavior of Tooth Enamel and Synthetic HAP Crystals Under High Partial Saturation Conditions
The dissolution behavior of enamel and synthetic hydroxyapatite in acidic media possessing a high degree of partial saturation was found to be neither simple surface dissolution nor linear with time. Instead, a repetitive, stepwise dissolution pattern was observed. To explain this phenomenon, a model based upon a hypothesis that the crystals dissolve in a synchronized fashion was proposed.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/66946/2/10.1177_00220345770560051201.pd
B Decays at BABAR
We present branching fraction and CP asymmetry results for a variety of B
decays based on up to 56.4 fb^-1 collected by the BaBar experiment running near
the Upsilon(4S) resonance at the PEP-II e+e- B-factory.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figures, presented at QCD02: High Energy Physics
International Conference in Quantum Chromodynamics, Montpellier, France, 2-9
Jul 200
Characteristics of Quantum-Classical Correspondence for Two Interacting Spins
The conditions of quantum-classical correspondence for a system of two
interacting spins are investigated. Differences between quantum expectation
values and classical Liouville averages are examined for both regular and
chaotic dynamics well beyond the short-time regime of narrow states. We find
that quantum-classical differences initially grow exponentially with a
characteristic exponent consistently larger than the largest Lyapunov exponent.
We provide numerical evidence that the time of the break between the quantum
and classical predictions scales as log(), where is
a characteristic system action. However, this log break-time rule applies only
while the quantum-classical deviations are smaller than order hbar. We find
that the quantum observables remain well approximated by classical Liouville
averages over long times even for the chaotic motions of a few
degree-of-freedom system. To obtain this correspondence it is not necessary to
introduce the decoherence effects of a many degree-of-freedom environment.Comment: New introduction, accepted in Phys Rev A (May 2001 issue), 12 latex
figures, 3 ps figure
On manifolds with nonhomogeneous factors
We present simple examples of finite-dimensional connected homogeneous spaces
(they are actually topological manifolds) with nonhomogeneous and nonrigid
factors. In particular, we give an elementary solution of an old problem in
general topology concerning homogeneous spaces
Geotechnical causes for variations in output measured from shallow buried charges
The role of the geotechnical conditions on the impulse delivered by a shallow buried charge has received much attention in recent times. As the importance of the soil in these events has become better understood, the control over the geotechnical conditions has improved. While previous work has investigated directly the role of geotechnical conditions on the magnitude of the impulse from a buried charge, the current work aims to identify how these same conditions also affect the repeatability of testing using soils. In this paper the authors draw together their work to date for a wide range of different soil types and moisture contents to investigate the variation in output from nominally identical tests. The methodology for the preparation of soil beds and the measurement of impulse is described along with the measured variations in peak and residual deflections of a target plate fixed to the impulse measurement apparatus
Climate change refugia for the flora and fauna of England
A variety of evidence suggests that species have, in the past, been able to withstand the effects of climatic change in localised environments known as refugia, where specific environmental conditions acted as a buffer against broader-scale climatic changes.
Therefore, an important question for conservation is whether refugia might exist under current and future anthropogenic climate change. If there are areas that are likely to remain relatively climatically stable and so enable species to persist despite climate change making surrounding areas unsuitable, identifying and protecting these places will be an important part of future conservation strategies.
This report is part of a project that is investigating this question. The report was commissioned to identify the characteristics of potential refugia, to investigate evidence for the existence of contemporary refugia by analysing patterns of local persistence and disappearance of over 1000 species across a range of taxa, and to identify sites in England with the potential to function as refugia for different taxonomic groups at a range of spatial scales
Effects of electrical stimulation of dorsal raphe nucleus on neuronal response properties of barrel cortex layer IV neurons following long-term sensory deprivation
Abstract: Objective To evaluate the effect of electrical stimulation of dorsal raphe nucleus (DRN) on response properties of layer IV barrel cortex neurons following long-term sensory deprivation. Methods: Male Wistar rats were divided into sensory-deprived (SD) and control (unplucked) groups. In SD group, all vibrissae except the D2 vibrissa were plucked on postnatal day one, and kept plucked for a period of 60 d. After that, whisker regrowth was allowed for 8-10 d. The D2 principal whisker (PW) and the D1 adjacent whisker (AW) were either deflected singly or both deflected in a serial order that the AW was deflected 20 ms before PW deflection for assessing lateral inhibition, and neuronal responses were recorded from layer IV of the D2 barrel cortex. DRN was electrically stimulated at inter-stimulus intervals (ISIs) ranging from 0 to 800 ms before whisker deflection. Results: PW-evoked responses increased in the SD group with DRN electrical stimulation at ISIs of 50 ms and 100 ms, whereas AW-evoked responses increased at ISI of 800 ms in both groups. Whisker plucking before DRN stimulation could enhance the responsiveness of barrel cortex neurons to PW deflection and decrease the responsiveness to AW deflection. DRN electrical stimulation significantly reduced this difference only in PW-evoked responses between groups. Besides, no DRN stimulation-related changes in response latency were observed following PW or AW deflection in either group. Moreover, condition test (CT) ratio increased in SD rats, while DRN stimulation did not affect the CT ratio in either group. There was no obvious change in 5-HT2A receptor protein density in barrel cortex between SD and control groups. Conclusion: These results suggest that DRN electrical stimulation can modulate information processing in the SD barrel cortex
Dynamics of FitzHugh-Nagumo excitable systems with delayed coupling
Small lattices of nearest neighbor coupled excitable FitzHugh-Nagumo
systems, with time-delayed coupling are studied, and compared with systems of
FitzHugh-Nagumo oscillators with the same delayed coupling. Bifurcations of
equilibria in N=2 case are studied analytically, and it is then numerically
confirmed that the same bifurcations are relevant for the dynamics in the case
. Bifurcations found include inverse and direct Hopf and fold limit cycle
bifurcations. Typical dynamics for different small time-lags and coupling
intensities could be excitable with a single globally stable equilibrium,
asymptotic oscillatory with symmetric limit cycle, bi-stable with stable
equilibrium and a symmetric limit cycle, and again coherent oscillatory but
non-symmetric and phase-shifted. For an intermediate range of time-lags inverse
sub-critical Hopf and fold limit cycle bifurcations lead to the phenomenon of
oscillator death. The phenomenon does not occur in the case of FitzHugh-Nagumo
oscillators with the same type of coupling.Comment: accepted by Phys.Rev.
The design of a parallel dense linear algebra software library: Reduction to Hessenberg, tridiagonal, and bidiagonal form
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